management essay

Project Management Process And Approach Management Essay

Published: 23, March 2015

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Project management has concerned to plan, synchronize and complete the composite and divers performance of current trade, commercial and management change and IT project. All projects share one common personal the protrusion of ideas and actions into novel activities. The ever present element of risk and indecision means that the event and task leading to completion can never be foretell with complete accurateness. Simply stated, project management has involved into a business process rather than nearly a project management process. More and more companies are now concerning project management as being compulsory for the endurance of the firm. Organisations that were opponents of project management are now advocates.

The application of a collection of tools and techniques to direct the use of diverse resources towards the achievement of a unique, complex, one time task within time, cost and quality constraints.

Its origins lie in World War II, when the military authorities used the techniques of operational research to plan the optimum use of resources.

One of these techniques was the use of networks to characterize a classification of related actions.

What exactly is a project?2

PM 1- I am in charge of the construction of a retail development in the centre of a large town. There are 26 retail units and a super market in the complex. My main farm duties are to organize the work of the various contractors to make in no doubt that the project is finished to requirement, within financial plan and on time.

PM 2- I am directing a team of research scientists. We are in a row trials on a new painkiller drug on behalf of a pharmaceutical company. It is my job to design the experiments and make sure that appropriate scientific and legal actions are followed, so that our results can be subjected to independent statistical analysis.

A project is a provisional attempt involving a connected progression of activities and a range of resources, which is designed to achieve an explicit and unique outcome and which operates within time, cost and quality restrictions and which is repeatedly used to introduce change.

Project Lifecycle3

Project Initiation- The beginning phase is the first stage in the project. In this stage a business problem (or opportunity) is acknowledged and a business folder which provides a variety of solution options is defined. A viability study is then conducted to investigate the likelihood of each solution option addressing the business problem and a final recommended solution is put forward. Once the recommended solution is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved solution.

Project scheduling- Once the possibility of the project has been defined in the Project licence; the project enters the detailed planning point. This involves the conception of a project plan, resource plan, economic plan, superiority plan, threat plan etc.

Project Execution- This phase involves the implementation of every movement and task scheduled in the Project Plan. While the activities and tasks are being executed, a series of management processes are undertaken to monitor and control the deliverables being output by the project.

2. Importance of Stakeholders in project management: 4

At times, it seems as though technology does all the important lifting in our economy. A quicker look, though, reveals that it is always people who make the equipment fabricate. On project, we call these movers and shakers stakeholders, because they have stake in the project. The first task of project manager is to identify these stakeholders.

Customers, conclusion makers, vendors, and employees obviously belong in this group, but in a larger sense anyone who contributes to the project or who is impacted by its result is a stakeholder.

Identifying stakeholder is a main task because all the important decision during the definition and planning stage of project are made by these stakeholders. These are the people who, under the direction of project manager, set up agreements on the goals and constraints of the project build the strategies and timetable and endorse the budget. In addition the people and organization that eventually judges the success of the project are considered stakeholders. It's clear that we need to know who our stakeholders are. It is also true that many projects fail to involve one or more critically important stakeholders during project definition and planning. The resulting problems are easily unsurprising: obligation conflicts and rework, at a minimum and sometimes more dire consequences, including law-suits or heavy fines.

Stakeholders are the heart of a successful project:

Defining our stakeholders as the people and organisations concerned in project recital are affected by the project costs a wide net. How can we possibly find or manage such a large and various groups? Although a project can enclose many stakeholders, most of them fall into an expected set of role. By understanding the classic roll it will be easier to seek out stakeholders and understand their stake in the projects.

How to identify stakeholders?

Sometimes identifying stakeholders is easy, other times you have to go elsewhere and uncover them. When searching for stakeholders, rather than asking. Who is the customer? Or who is project team? Ask who will make a contribution? And who will be affected by this project?

A stakeholder plays a significant role to complete any project and it's an important part to drive any project successfully. When we run and work on a project that time we have stakeholder in many format and different type some play direct role and some indirect. So if we have to complete any project very successfully then we need to identify stakeholder's roles in different areas. There are some types of roles which play by stakeholders.

2.1 Stakeholder roles:

Project Manager: what does a project manager contribute to the project? Magic or, more exactly, sensible magic. Just as a symphony conductor directs the orchestra to bring out the magic in the music, the project manager must keep all the dissimilar groups in a project moving in harmony. Whether he or she is planning the project, identifying the stakeholders, watching for cost overruns or refereeing disputes, the project manager has the primary role in any project.

Project Team: Who will do the work? The answer is the project team, in cycle with the project manager. All group and individuals who contributes time, skills and effort to project are measured team members. In addition to the individuals from the company allocated to the project, these can included contractors, vendors and even customers.

Management: Working effectively with company, management is important to the success of any project. Management, in this case refers to well-designed management, also known as line management. These can be department manager, first level supervisor, or executive voice-presidents.

2.2 Prospect, Interests and desires:

Stakeholder analysis is a method to identify and analyze the stakeholders adjacent a project. It provides information on stakeholders and their relationships, interests, and expectations. A proper investigation of the stakeholders will help you to build a project approach suited to the circumstances and will allow you to discuss better with the stakeholders. What people (and therefore your project stakeholders) really, really, really wants is what can be termed their interests. With doubts there is a stake to lose, and with requirements there is something to gain. In this perspective, I believe interests as the aspects that drive people. Before you start drawing your "interest assessment diagram" or some other tool or system, be conscious that in common these interests are hardly ever communicated. Its pure mind objects, all inside the head of the owner. A four-year-old boy may share his true interests with you, but the fifty year-old greying accountant will tell you nothing. If no one will tell you anything, what is the point? People will tell you something if you ask them. They will tell you they want an ice cream cone, a new hyper speed Internet uplink, or a new financial software package. In real meaning, they tell you what they expect. It is a report created by them about a needed situation: their prospect. If I highlight that expectations are a one-sided communication, then there must be something else as well; enter requirements. Requirements are a set of statements negotiated among a group of people. They can be the original expectations, if all agree on the statement itself, but more frequently than not, requirements consist of some compromise of incompatible expectations.

It sounds simple, but getting the expectations is one thing and discovering their corresponding stakes is another. Why bother anyway? What is it worth? A lot. You can't successfully change the stakes, but you can alter the set of requirements as long as the new requirements continue to support the stakes. In this way, there is room to discuss a set of requirements for the project that poses no difference, matches the stakes, and thus makes everyone a winner! 5

3. Project Management Process and Approach:

Project management is a process of leading a team of competent people in planning and implementing a series of related activities that require being proficient on an exact date with a limited budget. Because of its scenery, coordinating all these performance requires a process move towards. Because many times development project take on unknown territory, assumptions about the project must be programmed, evaluated, its risks assessed and possibility plans developed. It also requires a close monitoring of the funds, capacity and agenda to convey the project objectives under the usual quality. Each one of these elements needs to be managed in an organized way with the growth of plans to classify the roles and resources needed. Supervision a project requires that organizations take in reflection a system approach to manage the different elements of a project. A systems approach includes a holistic view of a project environment, and an understanding that the project is made of a series of interacting components working to meet an objective in order to obtain the needed benefits. A systems loom requires the recognition of the processes that make up the whole project management structure. This framework helps appreciate the basic configuration required to properly manage a project, by identifying the most significant rudiments that need close administration and careful analysis. There are nine management processes on a development project. These are intended to help handle the different fundamentals of a project, different projects may have different needs from each process; these nine processes are all integrative, that is, they need to be managed in a combining and coordinating way to carry these diverse elements into a whole. The nine management processes happen during the whole project life cycle and each one of them requires a cyclical approach that consists of planning, doing, checking and learning to make sure process quality. The nine project management processes are: 6

1. Scope Management

2. Schedule Management

3. Budget Management

4. Quality Management

5. Team Management

6. Stakeholder Management

7. Information Management

8. Risk management

9. Contract Management

4. Work Breakdown Structure in Process management: 7

Starting a new plan is like starting to write a book - you have a thought of what do you want to do, but you are not sure how to start. Many writers like project planner and managers, find the delineation is often the most efficient way to start writing.

The WBS is an outline of works; it is not the work itself. The work is the sum of many performances that make up the project. A WBS may starts either as a familiar list of activities or in a much planned way, depending on the project and constraints and it can end wherever the planner wants it to. The objective is to have a valuable skeleton to help define and systematize the work and then to get started doing it.

6. The Project Management Process (Project management for development organization)

E-book from www.pm4dev.com

7. Effective work breakdown structures/Gregory T. Haugan.

p.cm. - (project management essential library series), Printed in United States of America

ISBN 1-56726-135-3 (pbk

Referencing for this page continue on next page

In developing an outline for a book, for example some things happen almost automatically, mounting out of the restraint of the process. First limitations need to be obligatory on the book's content. Preparing an outline forces author to describe the topics, parts, sections, and chapters. The same thing happen when the project's WBS is developed, assumptions and constraints are often measured without focusing on them directly.

Developing the WBS is a four-step process:

Specifying the project objectives and focusing on the products, services, or result to be provided to the customer.

Identifying particularly the products, services or results (delivers or end items) to be provided to the customer.

Classifying other work areas in the project to make sure that hundred percent of work is enclosed and to identifying areas that cut across deliverables, represent intermediate outputs, or harmonize the deliverables.

Subdividing each of the items in the step 2 and 3 into consecutive, reasonable, subcategories until the intricacy and dollar value of the constituent become manageable units for planning and control purpose.

In the early phase of project, it may be practicable to develop only a two-to-three level WBS, since the details o the work may yet be undefined. on the other hand, as the project progresses into the project definitions phase or planning phase, the planning becomes more detailed. The subdivisions of the WBS can be developed to sequentially lower level at that time. The product of this sub cataloguing process is the completed WBS.

For case in point, in a project to erect a new garage for our new car, the steps are as follows:

Step1: Specify the project objective: build a one car garage with landscaping on the breathing lot; the garage should have internal and external lighting and plumbing for water.

Step2: Identify specially the product, services, or results (deliverable or end items): the garage and the landscaped ground.

Step3: Identify the other work areas to make sure that 100 percent of work is identified: A project management function is needed to such things as construction planning, obtaining permits and awarding subcontracts.

Step4: Subdivided the fundamentals until a level is achieved that is appropriate for planning and control.7

Garage Project

Landscaped Ground

Garage

Project Management

Level 1 & Level 2

Figure 1

Garage Project

Landscaped Ground

Garage

Project Management

* Driveway * Materials * Construction

* Landscaping * Foundations * Planning

* Walls * Permits

* Roofs * Inceptions

* Utilities * Subcontracts

Level 1, 2 & 3

Figure 2

One the WBS is traditional; it must be maintained and updated to reflect changes in the project. The bargain and content of the WBS and the exact work package very from project to project depending upon several considerations:

Size and difficulty of the project

arrangement of the organisation involved

period of the project

Project manager judgment of work allocation to subcontractors

Degree of indecision and threat involved

Time on hand for planning

The WBS is stunning communisation tool to present the projects scope in a comprehensible form and to coordinate this understanding within the project group and between the project team and other stakeholders.7 (A)

p.cm. - (project management essential library series), Printed in United States of America

ISBN 1-56726-135-3 (pbk)

Gantt Chart:

A Gantt chart is a parallel bar chart developed as a manufacture manage tool in 1917 by Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer and social scientist. Regularly used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical diagram of a timetable that helps to plan, coordinate, and track definite tasks in a project.

Gantt charts are helpful tools for planning and setting up projects. They allow you to measure how long a project should take, conclude the resources essential, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out. They are useful in managing the dependencies between tasks.

To draw up a Gantt chart, it must pursue these steps:

Steps 1 - List all actions in the plan. For every task, show the most basic start date, rough and ready length of time it will take, and whether it is similar or chronological. If tasks are chronological, show which stages they depend on. 8

Step 2 - Top up graph paper with the days or weeks through to task conclusion.9

Step 3 - Design the tasks onto the graph paper. Next draw up a uneven draft of the Gantt Chart. Plan each task on the graph paper, showing it starting on the earliest possible date. Draw it as a bar, with the length of the bar being the length of the task. Over the task bars, mark the time taken to complete them.10

Step 4 - Schedule activities. Now take the draft Gantt Chart, and use it to plan actions. Plan them in such a mode that chronological actions are passed out in the required string. Make certain that dependent performance do not start until the performances they depend on have been completed. While scheduling, ensure that you make best use of the possessions you have available, and do not over-commit resource.11

Step 5 - Presenting the investigation. The final point in this process is to arrange a final version of the Gantt Chart. This should merge with the draft analysis & with your scheduling and analysis of resources. This chart will show when you look forward to that jobs should start and finish.12

In constructing a Gantt chart, keep the tasks to a controllable number (no more than 15 or 20) so that the chart fits on a single page. More complex projects may require secondary charts which aspect the timing of all the subtasks which create up one of the main tasks. For team projects, it frequently helps to have an extra column containing numbers or initials which make out which one in the team is answerable for that task.13

6. Critical Path Method and Analysis:

The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a schedule network analysis technique. CPM was developed by the DuPont Corporation in 1957.Critical path determines the shortest time to complete the project and it is the longest duration path through a network of tasks. Critical tasks (activities) are tasks (activities) on the critical path.

To understand CPM further let's first understand nature of the task. According to PMBOK every scheduled task can be defined by the following four parameters.

â€¢ Early Start (ES): Earliest possible point in time on which a task can start.

â€¢ Early Finish (EF): Earliest possible point in time on which a task can finish.

â€¢ Late Start (ES): Latest possible point in time on which a task can start.

â€¢ Late Finish (EF): Latest possible point in time on which a task can finish.

Early Start and finish dates are considered by means of Forward Pass and Late Start and Late Finish dates are calculated by means of Backward Pass.

CPM is helpful in:

â€¢ Project Planning and control.

â€¢ Time-cost trade-offs.

â€¢ Cost-benefit analysis.

â€¢ Possibility planning.

â€¢ Reducing risk.

Limitations of CPM:

â€¢ CPM assumes low insecurity in schedule dates.

â€¢ Does not think resource dependencies.

â€¢ Less efficient use of barrier time.

â€¢ Less focus on non critical tasks that can cause risk.

â€¢ Based on only deterministic task period.

â€¢ Critical Path can change during implementation.

7. Evaluation of Project Management:

Management is a very vital part of anything so whenever any company or individuals plan to do something then previously they make a plan. In business areas when company work on a new project it called project management. Basically progress depends on these two progress physical and financial progress. This is an important area in the execution and management of project. Its also depend on types of organisation.

In the same way, mode of effecting of project may be turnkey or non-turnkey; there will be a range of agencies preparing reports depending on the effecting mode and type of organization. When there is a usual project management subdivision in the company and the projects are implemented with the departmental administration, reports are prepared in-house project departments. The periodicity of the reports may be weekly, monthly, quarterly. Throughout the commissioning of the project, reporting may be more recurrent. The project reports are prepared by:

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